Oricon published their half-year single, album, music DVD and music Blu-ray Disc sales figures on July 19th. With lots of activity in the singles category and the popularization of Blu-ray Discs, the music industry reported total sales of 156.42 billion yen (approximately $2 billion USD), a slight 1% increase compared to the same period in the previous year. This is the first time in 4 years since 2008 that sales have actually increased. The

The Recording Industry Association of Japan (or 'RIAJ') has just released their hard copy sales certifications for the month of January.
This certification is based off the total numbers of CDs and DVDs sold to retailers.
RIAJ hands out these awards based on the following standards:
Gold - 100,000 units sold
Platinum - 250,000 units sold; Double Platinum - 500,000 units sold; Triple Platinum - 750,000 units sold
Million - 1,000,00

AKB48's Nagoya sister group, SKE48, have sold 496,000 copies of their latest single, "Kataomoi Finally" in its first week! As such, they've topped the Oricon Weekly Single Ranking for the week of February 6th.
Though the group debuted in August of 2009, this marks their's first time to achieve sales of over 400,000 units. "Kataomoi Finally" has sold 113,000 more copies than their previous single, "Okie Dokie", making this the highest first

On January 28th's episode of TBS's music program, 'CDTV', two popular idol groups delivered their latest hits!
First up was SKE48 with "Kataomoi Finally", followed by 9nine with "Shoujo Traveler".
Check out their exciting performances below!
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<"Kataomoi Finally" - SKE48>
<"Shoujo Traveler" - 9nine>
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